The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, vol. 1: Problems in the Literary Source Material, vol. 1.

AuthorHoyland, Robert

Problems in the Literary Source Material. Edited by and Lawrence I. Conrad. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 1. Princeton: Darwin Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 428. $29.95.

This volume constitutes the first publication of an interdisciplinary project set up by the editors and entitled Late Antiquity to Early Islam. Its aims, we are told in the preface, are "to promote and facilitate communication among specialists in the various fields," the object of study being the Near East from the late sixth to the mid-eighth century, and "to provide opportunities for cross-disciplinary communications." The first such opportunity was a conference held in October 1989, which assembled a number of scholars to debate the various issues and aspects of the theme, "Problems in the Literary Source Material." The fruits of this gathering are the eight essays collected here.

The first two papers attempt a survey of the material to be found in Greek. That by Michael Whitby takes us on a tour of "Greek Historical Writing" from Procopius to the Arab conquests, pointing out the secular and ecclesiastical historians and chroniclers that populate the route. We are then invited to consider the reasons for "the virtual cessation of Greek historiography in the 630s," a fact that seems odd given the genre's long tradition going back to Herodotus and its vitality in the late sixth century. A number of factors are adduced, the most potent being the Arab victories and annexation of the Near East, which deprived Byzantines of appealing subject matter and of the reservoir of talent that had flowed from the provinces. Finally, Whitby examines the Byzantines' knowledge of the Arabs and concludes that "the lack of detailed information in Greek historians about Arab affairs in the late sixth and seventh centuries accurately reflects their lack of importance in contemporary wars and diplomacy" (p. 80). Anyone familiar with the studies of the Arabist Irfan Shahid and of the archaeologists Axel Knauf and Heinz Gaube, who stress the importance of the Arabs in the sixth century, will be puzzled by this conclusion. Might it not rather be the case that the Byzantines' contempt for non-urban barbarians led them to be-little the role of the Arabs, or that the latter's presence was by now so pervasive and commonplace that it no longer required explanation?

After the bad news of the demise of Greek history writing, Averil Cameron offers us the good news that theological works--particularly disputations, question-and-answer collections and florilegia--were, by contrast, produced in "enormous" quantity. Consequently, the usual conception of the seventh century as a "Dark Age" should be revised. Her paper, "New Themes and Styles in Greek Literature," points out the correlation between this increased output and the doctrinal controversies of Monophysitism and Monotheletism which racked the Christian world in the sixth and seventh...

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